Luton hit back at EFL over £15k fine

Mike Simmonds

Luton Town have hit out at the EFL for handing them a £15,000 fine for changes made during their EFL Checkatrade Trophy campaign this season.

The EFL executive confirmed this afternoon, they were fining the club £5,000 for each of the three matches played in the competition for breaching Rule 7.3 by not starting with at least five players who began the league fixture immediately before or after the Trophy game, or the five players who have started the most league and cup matches to that point in the season.

We are staggered, however, that we have been fined the maximum amount for our first offence, which was winning away from home at a club from the division above with half-a-dozen first-team regulars in their team.

Gary Sweet

Hatters won 2-1 at League One Gillingham and beat Premier League West Brom’s U23s, who included senior pros Callum McManaman, Craig Gardner and Swedish internatonal Jonas Olsson, to ensure qualification to the knockout stages. They then lost 3-1 to League One Millwall, which was played in front of the second highest Checkatrade Trophy crowd of the week at Kenilworth Road.

The club have confirmed the fine will be deducted from the £20,000 prize money gained from the competition as chief executive Gary Sweet told Luton’s official website: “We entered those teams with our eyes wide open and we accept that we would be fined for doing so.

“While we don’t feel we should be paying ‘fees’ to get our youngsters experience, we view that as an investment in their development.

“We are staggered, however, that we have been fined the maximum amount for our first offence, which was winning away from home at a club from the division above with half-a-dozen first-team regulars in their team.

“We played nine graduates of our academy in that game at Gillingham, and seven against a West Brom side containing four players, two of whom who were internationals and had been transferred for several million pounds, and still beat both.

“We believe our team selection has added value to a competition that was dying last season and is now – with low three-figure attendances at many matches so far – well and truly on its last legs.

“We had the second highest attendance in our one home game against a fellow senior EFL club, which we believe was only because we were playing our youngsters.

“We acknowledge our breach of the competition rules, but does our ‘offence’ make a mockery of the competition any more than a club substituting their first-choice goalkeeper after just a couple of minutes of the game to ensure they met the five-player starting rule?

“Which is more in keeping with the spirit of the game? Which supports the competition’s ethos of promoting young talent more?

“That is clearly disingenuous and by fining us this amount the EFL is effectively saying that promoting young talent is only acceptable if they’re with an EPPP1 club, and they are depriving their own member clubs’ young players access to first-team football.”